b'INNOVATION IS MORE THAN A WORDITS IN OUR DNATrailhead EastTrailhead East, a pilot program begun by Jim Keating, INLs manager of commercialization and entrepreneurial program, received $175,000 in 2021 from the U.S. Department of Energys Office of Technology Transitions, which had put out a request for proposals through its Practices to Accelerate the Commercialization of Technology (PACT) initiative.Keating said his aim was to set up something that would help INL teams that had gone through DOEs Energy I-Corps program or the labs own Energy I-Corps Lite.While Energy I-Corps participants take a crash course about how to validate potential customers for lab-developed innovations, teams coming back from boot camp still need mentoring and financial support as they refine their business models, he said.Energy I-Corps Success Stories For support and advice, Keating reached out to Trailhead, a Boise business incubator with 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, and DOMINO a partnership was formed. They wanted to find a way to work with the lab, so this was a way to provide them with one point of More than 70% of incidents occurring in the nuclear industrycontact, he said.happen because procedures are not followed correctly. Two researchers on INLs Human Factors team, Johanna Oxstrand andTrailhead East was created to be a physical place where Katya Le Blanc, began working in 2012 on a computer-basedinnovators could work beside each other, sharing ideas and proceduresystem that would visually guide workers throughinspiration. That was sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic, and each step of any process, validating input and outcomes beforethe program was forced to go virtual.moving forward. The aim was to simplify complex paper-based procedures, which would lower operation and maintenanceThe original plan was to have five teams receiving $15,000 each, costs. The INL team collaborated with several utilities that mightmoney to pay for the time staffers must spend away from the lab use the technology, having workers use test their tablets asas they conduct customer interviews and refine their business they continued to define functional requirements for smartmodel using the Stanford University Lean Launchpad method.documents. The result was ELINAElectronic Instructions forIts a really effective approach, he said. Instead of spending Nuclear Applications. millions to develop technology, first you validate that theres a In 2017, Oxstrand, Le Blanc and Rachael Hill took ELINA to Energymarket. Its important to discover whether or not what youre I-Corps, the Department of Energys boot camp for nationaldoing is going to resonate with the customer.laboratory engineers and scientists who want to commercializeIn many cases with Energy I-Corps, teams have discovered the their technologies. Over seven weeks, each three-person teamcustomers they assumed would be naturals were not interested gets coaching and conducts dozens of interviews to determine thebut that other prospects offered far greater opportunities. The sales and licensing potential for their lab-developed work. ELINAsnature of research is exploratory, but applied research should participation helped us better frame and highlight the uniquenessinvolve the customer, Keating said. This is a good way to address and value of the technology, Oxstrand said. The team acquired twothe market risk.DOE Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) awards to mature their idea and develop it with an industry partner. The first TCF, forDana Briggs, economic development director for the city of $150,000, helped them revise and copyright the code. The secondIdaho Falls, said she is happy INL received grant funding to TCF allowed them to partner with an outside vendor, NextAxiomadvance projects that help the technologies developed at INL Inc., with combined funding from NextAxiom and DOE providingserve market needs. I personally have been impressed with the roughly $1.5 million for the commercialization of DOMINO,work Trailhead Boise does and am excited that Idaho National essentially a rebranding of ELINA to make it applicable outsideLaboratory will be partnering with them to foster our local nuclear power stations. DOMINO has shown strong potential forinnovation ecosystem, she said.commercialization success. Nuclears biggest barrier to success is often thought to be that itAlthough Idaho Falls already has the Idaho Innovation Center, cant operate economically. DOMINO allows operators to spendwhich is raising money to construct a new building, this project more time doing work rather than managing procedures, whichis different and complementary, Keating said. This isnt done in in turn saves the utility money. As part of the Trailhead East effortexclusion. Any time youre building an ecosystem, the more the INL has conducted exploratory interviews with multiple othermerrier. We need all efforts.industries to find other markets for DOMINO, Oxstrand said.21'